The second week of November was a busy and exciting time for the Web3 community, especially for those in the Ethereum ecosystem. With the 7th Ethereum-focused conference and Thailand Blockchain Week 2024 happening in Bangkok from November 6th to 16th, members of the WID3+ Consortium were on the ground actively contributing to the events and moving forward with the Authbond project, funded by Trustchain NGI OC3. Here’s what we’ve been up to.
Design Jam Bangkok Mentorship
Victoria and Ben from the WID3+ Consortium took part as mentors at Design Jam Bangkok, a two-day gathering of developers and researchers working on Web3 challenges. WID3+ Consortium presented the design challenge: Human-Centric Grantee Contract Management. The session invited participants to explore ways to improve KYC processes and milestone payments for grant operators among others.
Participants reflected on their own experiences with grant funding and explored solutions to issues like barriers for smaller projects, the lack of transparency in grant evaluations, and better ways to verify milestones and track impact. This session also highlighted how challenging grant funding can be in Web3. The mentorship role enabled Ben and Victoria to share their expertise while gathering feedback to improve authbond’s design.
Grants & Impact Community Hub at Devcon SEA
As part of the Grants & Impact Community Hub during Devcon SEA, Ben had the opportunity to engage with funders, grantees, and others involved in the Web3 grants ecosystem. Throughout four days at the hub, discussions focused on the state of Web3 grant programs, the challenges grantees face in navigating diverse funding criteria, and the best practices for designing transparent and effective grant programs. This hub provided an opportunity to connect with others working on similar problems and gain a better understanding of how Authbond can address some of the pain points within the ecosystem.
Prototype Presentation at Sui Demo Day
The Authbond prototype has been deployed on the Sui blockchain to demonstrate its potential for managing on-chain bounties. After two weeks of development at the Sui Hacker House Bangkok, the prototype was demonstrated at the Sui Demo Day. While still in its early stages, this prototype is an important step toward building a practical tool to support both funders and applicants with the challenges of decentralised funding.
Reflections and Acknowledgments
Trustchain’s funding enabled more than just technological development for WID3+ Consortium; it created a pathway for meaningful community engagement. Through participation in Trustchain Open Calls, the team was able to develop WID3, a platform for decentralised identity management in OC1, which was tested in partnership with the University of Malta. Later in OC3, the Consortium embarked on exploring the issues in Web3 funding with the Authbond prototype, a platform for grants issuance and proposal submissions.
“During the Bangkok events, we gained practical insights into the challenges of funding allocation in Web3. Participating in the events as mentors and active contributors wasn’t about demonstrating a readily available perfect solution that will address all the problems, but about understanding the ecosystem’s actual needs. Each conversation added nuance to our understanding and helped us refine the Authbond prototype. The Sui Hacker House, where we engaged with many developers, in particular, highlighted the limitations of our previous approach that was in the platform’s complexity.” – Victoria, UI/UX Lead at WID3+ Consortium.
Trustchain’s financial support for our projects and strive for truly user-centric approaches motivated the team to engage with the Web3 community on the ground, gather insights that directly influence the project’s development, and validate it in real-world settings.
Victoria Kozlova
Victoria Kozlova is UI/UX designer and researcher with background in sociology and linguistics, currently conducting research on underrepresented groups in blockchains.
